pursued by Martianus, and, in his turn, inspiring Cassiodorus, who, in his monastie solitude, feebly retraced the outlines of 1-arning marked out by his more brilliant compeer; while in Is dorus, the grandson of Theodoric the Great, we seem to sgnise the transmitted influence of both these illustrious 15 misters of the most enlightened of the Gothic conquerors. With the name of Isidorus again, is associated, though in no true connexion, one of the most important movements of the Madle Ages,-the next prominent feature that arrests our at ntion in pursuing our enquiry'. An the num rous legends, pretended miracles, and er inventions, which, as Christianity became corrupt, hid tie sumplicity of the faith from view, it is undeniable that spart of unveracity grow up, that, combining with the perstition of the age, became a prolific source of imposture; a. in the ninth century we are presented with a notable mp'.ication of this tendency, in an effort at investing the ets of Rome with the appearance of greater completenssan I continuty, which, commencing in delil rate frnd, mately expanded into one of the most gigsatie lit vary rpnes that the world has seen Ataong the pincetara -1 tings of 1 idorus was one, De Oh us Evclesiatsticas, where- tutines he had collected the decisions of the Church on muua reus pants relating to discipline, ceremonies, and the limit ins The authority attaching to the diferent serei obecs, The wk copyol a deserved reputation, and must still be 1, and has of hai h value by all who seck to form an accurate of mate of the sanction afforded by the antsputics of the tarch for the observances of the Romish ritual In one pect however this treatise failed to satisfy the minds of a ator generation, for it contained little that could be quoted in favour of the exclusive pretensions of the Romesh sce; 1, more especially, the chun of contrinity, the unbroken tralition from the time of St. Peter, could not be traced in ENTRO DUCTION Escovery of Mercator. O its pages; for between Clemens, the first bishop, and Siricius, who died at the close of the fourth century, the decrees of the bishops of Rome were altogether wanting. But suddenly the missing Decretals were forthcoming. An unknown de individual, who styled himself Mercator, brought forward what purported to be a completion of the work of Isidorus, inasmuch as it supplied what was necessary to constitute that work an entire collection of the decrees of Rome from the earliest times. No traces of these documents were discoverable in the Roman archives, but they were nevertheless accepted as genuine by Nicholas, and also by Hinemar, the eminent archbishop of Rheims. It so happened that at the time when this pretended discovery took place, Rothrad, bishop of Soissons, had appealed to Nicholas against his deposition from his see by his metropolitan, Hincmar. It however doubtful whether he was justified in such a step, and Hincmar loudly affirmed that no such right of appeal existed. It was now found that, among the newly discovered Decretals, was one that established the supremacy Dispute between Hincuar and Rothrad. favour of Bothe sed on The False Decretals. was of Rome over all other metropolitans; Rothrad was rein stated in his episcopal chair by Nicholas; and Hincmar was compelled reluctantly to bow to the authority he had so incautiously admitted. When too late, he endeavoured indeed to call the genuineness of that authority in question, but in so doing he only incurred the inevitable imputation of having thus acted merely from a selfish regard to his personal interest and aggrandisement. From the recognition of these Decretals the Papacy dates an important advance in legislative power, and the attainment of a position from which it never afterwards receded'. It was not until three 1 The False Decretals do not merely assert the supremacy of the Church property, on its usurpation and spoliation; on ordinations; on the sacraments, on baptism, confirm. ation, marriage, the Eucharist; on fasts and festivals; the discovery of the cross, the discovery of the reliques of the Apostles; cn the chrism, holy water, consecration of churches, blessing of the fruits of the field; on the sacred vessels and habiliments. Personal incidents are not wanting centuries later, in the year 1151, that Gratian, a monk of en Bologna, published a new Decretum or Concordia Discor dentium Canonum, wherein he incorporated the collection by the Pseudo-Isidorus with numerous alterations and dditions. Respecting the amount of actual fraud contained in these labours, some difference of opinion has prevailed It has even been pointed out, that Gratian, by the insertion of decisions unfavorable to the pretensions of the Romish see, has sufficiently prove 1 the honesty of his motives; but it is certain that the scope of the entire work was largely to augment the privileges and authority of the Papacy'. It seems difficult moreover to understand, how many of the cinons could ever have been regarded as other than apocryphal for, in the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII deemed it expedient to expunge those parts which, however they might charitably have been supposed to have deceived INTRO the original compiler, could not sustain the scrutiny of a DUCTION more critical age. The Decretum, as it passed from the hands of Gratian, consisted of three parts: the first being devoted to general law, and containing the canons of Councils, decrees of the Popes, and opinions of the Fathers; the second comprising ecclesiastical judgements on all matters of morality and social life; the third containing instruction with reference to the rites and ceremonies of the Church. The Decretum was received throughout Europe with unquestioning submission; Pope Eugenius III marked his sense of its merits by raising Gratian to the bishopric of Chiusi; and Dante, a century later, assigned to the monk of Bologna a place in the celestial hierarchy, along with Albertus, Aquinas, and the other great doctors of the Church'. Such was the work the study of which known as that of the Canon Law, formed so important a part of the training of students at the English universities prior to the Reformation; which still survives in both Protestant and Catholic Germany; and continues to demand the attention of all those who seek to grasp intelligently the history and literature of the Middle Ages. Other additions have been made to the Decretum since the time of Gratian, but it is to his labours and those of his predecessor that are undoubtedly to be referred the most unjustifiable pretensions and accordingly the greatest misfortunes of the Romish Church 2. It was on the foundation of the canon law that those claims to temporal power were built up, which gave rise to the De Potestate of Occam, to the De Dominio Divino of Wyclif, and to the English Reformation. Revival of stdy of the Roman or LIVE LAW. Somewhat earlier in the same century that saw the completion of Gratian's labours, Irnerius began to lecture at Bologna on the Civil Law. From the time of the disruption of the Roman empire, the codes of Theodosius and Justinian would appear to have survived as the recognised law of the 1 Paradiso, Bk. x 113. See a Lecture by R. G. Phillimore p. 3; the latter writer, though a staunch Catholic, admits and deplores the effects of the excessive pretensions of the Decretals on behalf of the Papal power. tribunals that existed under the Gothic, the Lombard, and the Carlovingian dynastics; but the knowledge of them was very imperfect, and indeed almost valueless, save as representative of a great tradition and marking the path that led to a more systematised and comprehensive theory'. The school founded by Irnerius marks the commencement of an improved order of things. The states of Lombardy were, at this time, advancing with rapid strides in populousness and wealth, and their increasing commerce and manufactures demanded a more definite application of the admirable code they had inherited. Irnerius accordingly not only expounded t the Roman code in lectures, but introduced, for the first tane, the plan of annotating it with brief explanations of teries or sentences, these annotations being known under the Fame of glosses. His example was followed in the next entury by Accursius of Florence, whose labours may be ARIEL regarded as constituting an era in the history of jurisprudence. The precise value of the service rendered by these glossers has been the subject of some dispute; it is not denied that they promoted a more enreful and intelligent interpretation of the code, but some have regarded it as a s nous evil that their labours almost superseded the study of the text. The construction placed by an eminent glossist upon an obscure er doubtful passage became itself the law, and to master and dst the various interpretations a separate and important atu-ly. It was now however that jurisprudence began again to Bat a sume it's true dignity as a science and a profession. The f me of the new learning spread rapidly through Europe, and the disc ples of Inerius diffused his teachings in Spen, France, and Germany. In its progress however the senten Licked the all powerful aid that had attended the emon law, and it is remarkable that a study which was before long to become the special field of ambition to the celestistic, |